Lessons of History, Continued: From a review of "Werewolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944-1946" ;

What did the Werewolf do? They sniped. They mined roads. They poured sand into the gas tanks of jeeps. (Sugar was in short supply, no doubt.) They were especially feared for the "decapitation wires" they strung across roads. They poisoned food stocks and liquor. (The Russians had the biggest problem with this.) They committed arson, though perhaps less than they are credited with: every unexplained fire or explosion associated with a military installation tended to be blamed on the Werwolf. These activities slackened off within a few months of the capitulation on May 7, though incidents were reported as late as 1947....Goebbels especially grasped the possibility that guerrilla war could be a political process as well as a military strategy. It was largely through his influence that the Werwolf assumed something of the aspect of a terrorist organization. Where it could, it tried to prevent individuals and communities from surrendering, and it assassinated civil officials who cooperated with the Allies. Few Germans welcomed these activities, but something else that Goebbels grasped was that terror might serve where popularity was absent. By his estimate, only 10% to 15% of the German population were potential supporters for a truly revolutionary movement. His goal was to use the Werwolf to activate that potential. With the help of the radical elite, the occupiers could be provoked into savage reprisals that would win over the mass of the people to Neo-Nazism, a term that came into use in April 1945.

The Werewolves specialised in ambushes and sniping, and took the lives of many Allied and Soviet soldiers and officers -- perhaps even that of the first Soviet commandant of Berlin, General N.E. Berzarin, who was rumoured to have been waylaid in Charlottenburg during an incident in June 1945. Buildings housing Allied and Soviet staffs were favourite targets for Werewolf bombings; an explosion in the Bremen police headquarters, also in June 1945, killed five Americans and thirty-nine Germans. Techniques for harassing the occupiers were given widespread publicity through Werewolf leaflets and radio propaganda, and long after May 1945 the sabotage methods promoted by the Werewolves were still being used against the occupying powers.Although the Werewolves originally limited themselves to guerrilla warfare with the invading armies, they soon began to undertake scorched-earth measures and vigilante actions against German `collaborators' or `defeatists'. They damaged Germany's economic infrastructure, already battered by Allied bombing and ground fighting, and tried to prevent anything of value from falling into enemy hands. Attempts to blow up factories, power plants or waterworks occasionally provoked melees between Werewolves and desperate German workers trying to save the physical basis of their employment, particularly in the Ruhr and Upper Silesia.Several sprees of vandalism through stocks of art and antiques, stored by the Berlin Museum in a flak tower at Friedrichshain, caused millions of dollars worth of damage and cultural losses of inestimable value. In addition, vigilante attacks caused the deaths of a number of small-town mayors and, in late March 1945, a Werewolf paratroop squad assassinated the Lord Mayor of Aachen, Dr Franz Oppenhoff, probably the most prominent German statesman to have emerged in the occupied fringes over the winter of 1944-45.

~~~

See Previous Post from March 22nd. And if a 45-year-old Software Engineer from Australia can see this stuff in advance, how come the professional media punditocracy can't?

UPDATE : I've just read an article that Chuck Simmons wrote on this very subject on the 17th - including some of the same quotes, but also some I wasn't aware of. Worth a read.

UPDATE: And even earlier, on the 10th, Hugh Hewitt of the Weekly Standard "got it" when he wrote :

Despite what the quagmire chorus would have you believe, this isn't the first time America has tried to rebuild a war-torn, formerly fascist state.

That makes One mainstream journalist who can see the obvious (and state it rather better than I can). I wonder when the rest will catch up...

I am a college professor and I liked this story on the German violence after WW II (which I originally got from the Wall Street Journal) so much that I sent it to my students enrolled for upcoming classes in American foreign policy. On the same day that I sent it, however, I found this account from the Hussein sons' captured bodyguard in the London Times:

"The bodyguard said that Saddam and his sons had remained in Baghdad in the genuine belief that they could hold the city. Only later, when they believed they had been betrayed by their commanders, did they consider an alternative. 'The resistance was not factored in before the war,' he said. 'There was a closed meeting five or six days after the war, and that is when they began to discuss the resistance.'"

I still think it is a pretty good analogy between postwar Germany and postwar Iraq, but there appears not to have been any prewar planning on the part of the Iraqis unlike the planning begun by Himmler in 1944. Not a fundamental difference, perhaps, but a difference nonetheless.

As for why we do not see this sort of thing more generally in the press, it is because journalists are historically ignorant, by and large.

I keep hearing people make this comparison. I'll bet any of them dollars to donuts that these Wolverine, etc. potshots were on a minor scale compared to the current bloodletting of Americans in Iraq.

I have a very simple question which can prove this case one way or the other: how many American troops were killed by post-war guerrilla action in Germany? As long as that question remains unanswered, this comparison will properly be dismissed as fallacious.

BTW, please do give me the "do you our research" runaround routine. I have. I called the Center for Military History (the chief federal military history agency) in Washington and they think this comparison is bogus.

One of the quoted articles claims that the German "Werewolves" " . . . took the lives of many Allied and Soviet soldiers and officers." Unless this claim is false, I don't see why you discount the comparison with Iraq.

"Many" may have died before the end of the war, but then that does not address the point. How many "many" died after the German surrender? I would think that the folks who love to make the comparison would at least be mildly interested in answering this question

Well, Mr. Wright, if you read the post, you saw this, "...an explosion in the Bremen police headquarters, also in June 1945, killed five Americans and thirty-nine Germans." That was just one instance. The fact is that the 'wrapping up' is just beginning in Iraq. Why don't we wait awhile before trying to characterize or judge its success?

You're a war historian and you think our post-major ops casualties have been high? We have ~ 150,000 troops across Iraq - a nation the size of Germany - w/ ~ 24 million newly Freed Iraqis. During the last two weeks in June, as our troops were completing the third of three major aggressive operations to root out loyalists, the press became increasingly shrill. By the month's end an ignorant media watcher may have believed our troops were helpless, victims of the Big Bad enemy - dupes of the government, instead of the warriors they are. The last two weeks in June we had 13 fatalities - 7 hostile. One porch accident in Chicago the same period claimed more US casualties. Our guys took out - in Operation Scorpion alone - over $9 million bad guy funds, mountain of bad guy weapons and detained over 1000 bad guys - bad guys with intel.

This week has been a high-casualty week. The Hussein boys co-rats. We lost 13 troops in one week..as usual by cowardly means...ieds and RPG hits on convoys, and tossing a grenade at troops guarding a children's hospital. The leftovers started hitting civilian targets with greater frequency in the last few weeks - because they are very familiar with our military. You should check the CENTCOM security logs. Our troops take out far more bad guys - with the help of the Iraqi people - daily.

Some reporters mistakenly claim the war was declared over when the President declared major operations over. They know better. The eight objectives were clearly spelled out at the beginning of the war and the troops have accomplished most of them in just 4 months and 10 days. Awesome.

Of course the two wars were very different. The losers who refuse to denounce their loyalties to the monsters they served - whether Ba'athist Socialist or National Socialists - share the same future - no place in the land they once ruled. They are both isolated and defeated, desperate individuals - stripped of command and control, funds and future. They will fight to the death....'to the death' being the key.

I agree that some Americans died in Germany (and I have said so in posts until I am blue in the face) but asked for *some* evidence that the death rate was the scale of the current bloodletting of Americans. My basic question was simple: how many Americans [that's total!] died in postwar guerrilla action in Germany?

BTW, five Americans died in Iraq in one twenty-four hour period this week and many more have died besides that. If folks want to make a comparison, they have an obligation to back it up with evidence.

I am not war historian but the folks at the Center for Military History (the chief federal agency on military history) are and they think your comparison between Germany and Iraq is nonsense. Call them sometime.

One of the quoted articles claims that the German "Werewolves" " . . . took the lives of many Allied and Soviet soldiers and officers." Unless this claim is false, I don't see why you discount the comparison with Iraq.

Why? Because he's been against the war since the subject came up, and there will never be enough mass graves or defunct terror training camps and torture chambers to convince him to pull his head out and realize we did a good thing. For some people, hunting down terrorist scum is still not a legitimate national security aim.

"Many" may have died before the end of the war, but then that does not address the point. How many "many" died after the German surrender? I would think that the folks who love to make the comparison would at least be mildly interested in answering this question

Here's a thought, try doing some math. From the article:

Buildings housing Allied and Soviet staffs were favourite targets for Werewolf bombings; an explosion in the Bremen police headquarters, also in June 1945, killed five Americans and thirty-nine Germans.

Fourty-four folks is a lot of folks, almost as many as we've lost since 1 May in Iraq. That was in one Werewolf attack. You're right, the comparison may not be valid; seems Hussein's deadenders are pretty ineffective compared to Goebbel's dipsticks.

Math? Boy...folks are getting desperate to prove this analogy. Five Americans died in the raid! BTW, since yo are sexing up the numbers by including non-Americans you should also include the many Iraqi police who have died since May 1. BTW, my standard is strict. I only include Americans who are, after all, my main concern.

Did you read my post? I'm not comparing post-war Germany to NON-post war Iraq (we are still at war).

In post-war Germany, the world understood that Hitler was the bad guy. The press informed the people. The UN did not yet exist - nor did 700,000 NGOS - mostly un-American, most working toward global socialism in concert with the UN - unelected and unaccountable - along with 'allied' nations and US elected leaders and former Presidents deliberately working to weaken America on the world stage. The press knew the difference between right and wrong. Both major US political parties were working towards the same basic goal.

I simply stated the obvious - the tactics of losers today and then are very similar, and both groups have no future in the country they once ruled.

The claim made by people who make this analogy FR is that that war also "continued" in post war Germany e.g. on the same scale as the war "continues" in Iraq. Otherwise their "comparison" is nonsense. If they want to make a direct comparison, they should stop hedging.

Austin, I completely understand your objection to my numbers in post 19, but I am not playing with figures (as my Econ professor says, "figures don't lie, liars figure") just pointing out that the number of deaths occurring one month after hostilities concluded in Germany was substantial, and this was just one example. I also agree completely with what Ragtime wrote in post 20. The environment in Iraq is tougher than in post-war Germany, and our soldiers are performing superbly. It is only a matter of time before all the dead-enders meet their dead-end. Read an email from a Green Beret Colonel if you still have an open mind, which I doubt.

It is no surprise that you are having trouble adjusting to the post-9/11 era. In the fall of 1945, General Groves (director of the Manhattan Project) told a congressional committee that it would be "20 years to never" before another nation would be able to develop a nuke. The Soviet Union had one in five years. The CNO of the time said that if another nation came up with one, they would need to deliver it by ship. Some airpower advocates said blockbusters would remain the weapon of choice because they were more precise, and our enemies would know we wouldn't use the bomb in any situation less drastic than avoiding the invasion of Japan was. You might want to learn from another piece of history while we're at it: Mogadishu. We fled out of Somalia like scalded dogs after 18 deaths. On the "Smoking Gun" tape, Osama detailed how this convinced him that thousands of deaths on our home soil would defeat us completely. If we pull out of Iraq now, will we be hearing some jihadist punk talk about how he decided to detonate a dirty bomb in DC because we bugged out of Iraq with a little more than 200 total casualties? We live in the age of asymetric warfare now, and we have to take the fight to the terrorists. That will cost lives, but it will save many, many more. If you can't cope with the post-9/11 era, move to Fiji.

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